


Like Ripples on the Surface

by Thymesis



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Established Relationship, Exchange Assignment, Explicit Sexual Content, Fandom 5K 2018, Force Ghost Qui-Gon Jinn, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Third Person, Tatooine, Wacky Force Wizardry Alert, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-04-30 06:30:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14490888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thymesis/pseuds/Thymesis
Summary: The secret, which my Master discovered and I impart unto you now, is not achieved through the retention of one’s energy, the maintenance of the separate, sanctified self. It is, rather, achieved by a dissipation of the self and the replication of one’s pattern across the whole of the energy field that is the Force…





	Like Ripples on the Surface

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serenityabrin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenityabrin/gifts).



Twin suns rise, and long, graceful, rose-gold fingers of light reach out to chase away the cool, crooked shadows of night over the ever-shifting sands of the Dune Sea.

The resident bantha herd is already on the move, snorting and shaking their horned, woolly heads. Their favorite morning grazing spot lies just beyond the furthest horizon.

In the distance, a krayt dragon roars. Her lonely cry echoes along the rocky hollows, jagged slopes, and sheer cliffs which constitute the easternmost boundary of the Jundland Wastes. Her belly is full, and soon, she will be bedding down with her mate in their nest, safe within the dark depths of their hidden lair.

The high plateau upon which he has made his home these many years on Tatooine: He who calls himself Ben Kenobi is meditating.

Once upon a time, long ago, this man sat on the Jedi High Council, convened in the Temple on Coruscant. He led clone trooper armies into battle. His patience and wisdom and skill with a lightsaber were renowned. His name—well, _his old name_ —was uttered with reverence by sentient beings across the galaxy.

What would those who knew him then think if they were to see him now?

Some might see a man in tattered roughspun robes and a hooded cloak, dazed, aged prematurely by privation, head bowed and eyes half-closed, pottering about aimlessly in the dust. How the mighty have fallen, the ignorant might be so inclined to think.

Those who know, though, truly _know_ , might see something rather different.

This is not the cross-legged, seated meditation of some HoloNet fantasy warrior-monk stereotype.

This is moving meditation, and wherever the man places his feet, his steps taking him on a seemingly directionless, seemingly random path, the sand rises into the air and falls again, apparently of its own accord, shaping itself in his wake into miniature, centimeter high curving lines of hills and valleys.

Then, gradually, over the course of several thoughtful minutes’ observation, the truly perceptive few might realize that those curving lines of hills and valleys are forming a pattern.

This pattern is the labyrinth of the sentient mind, made manifest. Complex but ordered. There is only one way in and one way out of the labyrinth, and truth be told, there is no one else besides its creator for fifty kilometers in any direction to see it. It would be exceedingly dangerous for anyone to see it, for it would reveal its creator for the powerful being he once was.

The powerful being he still is. The powerful being he is still in the process of becoming.

Nevertheless, _were_ one to see it from the sky above, looking down, it would appear rather like the outward-spreading, circular pattern that a pebble makes when dropped into a body of still water.

Like ripples on the surface.

Ben halts abruptly and turns his head to look over his left shoulder, like he has heard something which he did not expect, or caught a glimpse of something surprising out of the corner of his eye. He lowers his hood, runs his fingers through his thinning white hair, strokes his bearded chin, and sighs. He is pondering.

Nothing to see, nothing to hear, save that which is ordinary in the desert. Nevertheless, there is…there is…something. There are…echoes. Yes. Echoes from parts of his past that he believed he’d left far, far behind him.

He continues to ponder. Eventually, he reaches a decision. Precisely what he has decided, he gives no sign. He turns around with purpose and ducks back inside the modest, domed adobe building that is his hermitage.

Behind him, the hot southern wind has begun to stir. By noon at the very latest, the intricate, beautiful pattern which Ben has sculpted with the sands of Tatooine will be erased, gone as if it had never existed in the first place. Ben understands this and accepts it. He does not need some grand monument to his creative prowess out here in the desert.

No, a Jedi needs not such things.

Things come, and things go; that, Ben knows, is the natural order of the universe.

***

Ben lives in the present, but he is haunted by parts of the past. While some parts of his past are behind him—or until recently he’d _thought_ they were behind him—others parts are decidedly not.

They aren’t, strictly speaking, even past.

He leads a modest life. Scavenging, bartering, and the occasional odd job for the locals. Meditation and mundane daily chores. The interior of his home is whitewashed and spotless, nary grain of sand nor speck of dust to be found. He makes his own yogurt and bakes his own sweet, fragrant flatbreads. Sometimes, he visits with the wild banthas; he’s given them names, all of them, from the oldest herd matriarch to her great-granddaughter’s first wobbly-legged newborn calf. Sometimes, he writes in his journal.

This journal constitutes the sole extant record of Ben Kenobi’s thoughts and memories, and it is not intended for himself. He does not rate his personal musings above those of other beings, and he is not vain. No, the journal will be for young Luke Skywalker after he is—

“It’s getting late. Put pen and paper aside and come to bed, Obi-Wan.”

And sometimes, the past becomes present.

He could almost be real. The soles of his boots sound heavy against the flowstone tiles; the bedclothes rustle softly as he turns them down in readiness for what is to come.

Ben disrobes and climbs into bed. The mattress is cool against his bare skin as he rolls over onto his stomach, and he can feel it shift beneath him as a bigger, heavier weight settles in to join him.

He could almost be real. The body that embraces him is thick and muscular, with just the slightest hints of softness of skin, of body hair. His hands are large, with long fingers and calloused palms, and they stroke along Ben’s arms, down his back, around his hips, and over the swells of his buttocks. The hands come to a stop at his inner thighs and spread them gently apart.

Ben relaxes and sighs with pleasure at the sensation of the warm, glossy tip brushing against him. He sighs again when it starts to push inside and moans his welcome into his pillow at the burning slide—familiar, profoundly comforting—of that thick erection. Deep, so deep. Filling him. The scrotum is crushed against his perineum; his own erection is crushed between against the mattress.

Yes, indeed. He could almost be real.

But alas, he isn’t real.

The slow, hard thrusts that stretch Ben so deliciously and push with unerring accuracy into the swell of his prostate gland feel real…but Ben cannot push back into those thrusts or tighten his muscles around the shaft. That big, calloused palm that worms its way beneath him, to claim his erection, to stroke it, to tease the weeping slit and the foreskin, to press sweetly against the sensitive underside, feels real as well…but Ben can’t grind or thrust into the hand that grasps him.

An arm slides under Ben’s chest and up around his shoulder, pulling him more closely against the heaving, straining body behind him. Teeth nip delicately at his earlobe; warm lips press against the back of Ben’s neck; and coarse facial hair tickles and tantalizes as the slick tip of a tongue strokes and laves the sensitive skin there. Ben knows from experience that he should not turn his head, should not try to claim those lips with his own. He squeezes his eyes shut.

He isn’t real, no, but he almost could be. Almost. Because, aaahhh, the thrusts inside, the stroking of the hand—the pace of both begins to accelerate, perfect synchronicity, and Ben feels that wonderful, pleasurable tension coiling and building, building, building, ready to unwind and explode—

Ben cries out wordlessly as he spills himself, lost in the mirror-bright ecstasy of his orgasm, back arched and limbs thrown out straight, fingers and toes clenching and unclenching spasmodically. The throbbing of the swollen organ and the sudden flush of heat fill him, and from behind, he hears a low, choked groan.

Oh, if only he were real! He would have loved to have heard that groan when Qui-Gon was still alive.

Afterwards, he turns onto his side, away from the wet spot in the middle of the bed, and savors the feel of Qui-Gon’s embrace. Their legs are tangled together, and Qui-Gon is still inside of him. His chin is tucked against Ben’s shoulder, the slow inhalations and exhalations of air he doesn’t need like a rush of wind in Ben’s ear. The pad of one thumb circles Ben’s nipple, caressing it into pebbly hardness.

Reflexively, Ben places his hand over the hand touching him…and feels nothing but his own aging flesh. His hand passes right through Qui-Gon’s like it isn’t even there.

And it isn’t. Not really.

Ben can _be_ touched, but he cannot touch in return. Never. It’s a paradox. Qui-Gon himself, persisting as he does after his death on Naboo so long ago, is a paradox, a paradox within a paradox. And it is one that, truth be told, Ben has never fully understood—and not for lack of trying to learn.

A thousand generations of wise masters before them would have called this strange semi-life in the Force impossible.

 _There is no try_ , Master Yoda would say if he were here.

Yes, yes, but _why_? Ben doesn’t understand. He has been able to touch the Force for as long as he can remember; he wields it with the confidence and skill of a Jedi Master…but he has not touched Qui-Gon Jinn since the day he died in his Padawan learner Obi-Wan Kenobi’s arms, slain by Darth Maul.

“I just…sometimes, I just wish you were here, Master. Really here,” Ben whispers to the blank, whitewashed wall of his sleeping alcove.

“No one is ever really gone.”

“You know what I mean.”

He can feel Qui-Gon’s breath, still, and the slow, steady rise and fall of the chest pressed snugly against his back.

“Yes. But _you_ don’t know what _I_ mean.”

Ben is silent, and he does not react when Qui-Gon finally loses his erection and slips out of him. How can he ache with the pain of loss when it wasn’t ever _really_ there in the first place?

“True understanding will come,” Qui-Gon says. “I have every confidence in you, Obi-Wan.”

Sometimes, Ben wonders if he has sufficient confidence in himself. It isn’t like Qui-Gon was always right. Or infallible. No, not even when he was alive. _Especially_ not when he was alive. If he had been infallible, Ben reckons that he’d still _be_ alive.

And maybe none of what came after would have had to have happened.

***

Ben saddles up his dewback and visits the power station the next day.

Apart from a young woman sitting perched on edge of the messy desk, her legs swinging idly in the air back and forth in front of her, there does not appear to be anyone in the station’s front administrative office when he arrives.

“Hello there,” Ben says. He knows his expression is disarming, his mouth arranged into a charming if somewhat vacant smile. “Is Merl Tosche around? I would like to speak with him.”

The young woman shrugs. She looks bored, and when she replies, it is with the slurred speech of a world-weary teenager. “C’mon, ev’rybody knows Tosche don’t hardly come ’round here no more.”

“Oh, I see. I didn’t know that.” Actually, Ben _does_ know that, of course, but he feigns surprise and disappointment anyway. His real objective in coming here is not to see Merl Tosche, but he must maintain the ruse for the sake of appearances. “When do you suppose he might be in? I can return at a later date.”

“Fuck if I kno—”

“Who is it, Camie?” A voice from the back room, its owner unseen, shouts the question.

“Jus’ old Ben Kenobi, here askin’ to see Tosche. Don’t worry. I already told him—”

The head and then the long, lanky body of station manager Laze Loneozner emerges from the back room. “Whaddaya want?” he asks.

“New stock for purchase or trade,” Ben replies shortly.

Laze grunts, noncommittal, and heads outside without a second glance in Ben’s direction. Ben is a known scavenger working the Jundland Wastes; Laze understands the roles they both play under such circumstances perfectly…or at least he thinks he does.

“Hey, who—”

A second, rather lighter-hued head emerges from the back room: Luke Skywalker. He’s the real reason why Ben is here visiting at the station today, but the only one who knows this is Ben himself. Luke, for his part, favors Ben with a politely friendly nod and attempts to sidle up close to the young woman. Camie, Ben tells himself, her name is Camie.

“Hey, would you like to try a round of sa—” Luke begins, his tone of voice high-pitched and plaintive, wheedling.

“Nah, let’s go see the goods,” she says, unimpressed and rising from the desk, brushing Luke off in the middle of his sentence like a stray sandfly to follow Laze outside.

Naturally, Luke too follows quickly, practically stepping on her heels in his eagerness, and Ben follows them as well, albeit at a more sedate, leisurely pace.

Laze already has the dewback’s saddlebags open and has begun riffling through their contents. He does not appear to be particularly excited by what he sees. “You should be paying _me_ to take this junk off your hands, old man,” he scoffs. “Look at this! This condenser coil is so corroded it isn’t fit to be used as a chair leg—you’d be ass down in the dust in no time.”

Ah yes. Haggling, a ritual song and dance of sorts on Tatooine.

Ben sniffs. “That condenser coil is practically new, and you’re a bantha whose wool has grown into his eyes if you can’t see that.”

Camie rolls her own eyes, crosses her arms, and sighs. She was born on this planet; she knows the game too.

Luke peers around Laze’s shoulder to take a look at the condenser coil himself. He’s immediately impressed—and he doesn’t have the guile necessary to disguise his reaction. “Hey, Fixer…”

Laze elbows Luke in the stomach warningly. “Fifteen credits,” he tells Ben.

“I’ll take no less than one-hundred-and-fifty,” Ben retorts.

“One-hundred-and-fifty—?!” Laze sputters.

“That’s what I said.”

Laze gives the condenser coil another inspection. He pretends to relent. “All right. Just because you’re probably suns-struck after all these years out by yourself in the Wastes. I’ll give you forty.”

“One-hundred-and-fifty, no less.”

“Sixty?”

“No.”

“You’re killin’ me, old man. Even if you could get one-fifty for this coil, _I_ can’t. After refurbishing costs and markup…”

But Ben has stopped listening to Laze’s prattle. He is gazing off into the distance, squinting, like he might be able to see something important if only his eyesight were ever so slightly more acute. Ben knows _he_ —the being he wishes to avoid—is near. Very near. Too near. Ben shrugs and pulls the hood of his cloak over his head.

“Very well. I see I’m not going to be able to talk sense into you today. I will take my wares and business elsewhere. Good day.”

Laze blinks, surprised. This is not how a haggling sequence normally ends, but he does not care enough to argue further. Shrugging, he heads back inside the station with Camie.

Luke, though, lingers. “Ben…”

“If you’ll forgive me, young Luke, I’m in a bit of a hurry,” Ben says as he unties the dewback from the hitching post.

“No, no, that’s fine. I just, uhh—” Luke stops, takes a breath, and starts over. “Look, you’re right. That condenser coil is practically good as new, and what you’re asking for it is reasonable. We can always use more of them on the farm. Why don’t you come back home with me? I’m sure you can get your price.”

Ben chuckles as he climbs up into the saddle. “Your uncle doesn’t like me coming around, as I recall. Likes to say I bring trouble with me wherever I go and he’d sooner deal with the Jawas.”

“That’s true,” Luke admits. “But Uncle Owen’s out working the southern ridge most mornings. If you come by at second sunrise, Aunt Beru will—”

“Many thanks for this, Luke,” Ben interrupts. He cannot afford to continue tarrying in Luke’s presence. Not with _him_ so near. “Maybe I’ll do that…but not today. We’re well past second sunrise, alas, and your uncle would be catastrophically angry were I to show up now.”

He inclines his head in farewell to Luke, and Luke, thank goodness, does not attempt to argue with him any further. Indeed, he’s back inside the station and laughing with his friends before Ben has even ridden past the closest of the power station’s solar collection cell arrays.

***

“He’s here on Tatooine, Master.”

“Who’s here, Obi-Wan?”

“Maul. I have been sensing his presence these past days. I do not understand how he did it, but he has found this planet, and he knows I’m here. He’s searching for me. He’s very close.”

“And what do you intend to do?”

“I will not fight Maul! His death is not necessary, and there has been too much death already. Far, far too much—”

“There is no death—”

“There is the Force. Yes, Master. But I would not hasten anyone’s return to it unless I have no other choice. Especially not while I still fail to understand how _your_ luminous energies retained some measure of your selfhood after their dispersion and reversion to—”

“ _Let go_ , Obi-Wan.”

“I _have_ let go. I let you go, Master, on Naboo, and I hold no grudge against your killer.”

“I know you have, and I know you don’t. That’s not what I mean.”

“I know it’s not. My understanding is still lacking—forgive me. But Master, Maul must not become aware of the existence of Luke. He would twist the boy, taint his purity, tempt him to the dark side. It cannot be allowed.”

“Where do you keep your lightsaber?”

“It’s at the bottom of the storage chest. Both of them are, actually…”

“Well, Obi-Wan, perhaps you ought to retrieve it now.”

***

This is the final confrontation with Maul.

As soon as Ben chose to reveal himself, it became inevitable. To protect Luke’s innocence for even just a little bit longer, it must be a fight to the death.

The night sky is indigo-black and dotted with stars. The flickering orange flame of the nearby campfire serves to keep the desert’s native predators at bay, and as for the non-native ones, well, if it makes one of them look even more like a Hosnian hellfire demon than usual, Ben is unfazed. The occasional crackle and snap of burning fuel is the only sound he hears.

Past has become present, yet the ghosts that haunt it are notably absent. They are alone; they face each other alone.

Ben is not what he once was. He retreats into his labyrinth of the mind. He paces its winding paths, its curves, its circles. The solution is within him, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere.

But Maul, _as for Maul_ …

Time is stopped. All motion has ceased. As they face off, the universe becomes a flat, glassy tableau. Maul isn’t like fire, not really. Rather, he’s like ice. Like a frozen lake that has never known the enlivening touch of a spring breeze, like water that never eddies, never flows, never responds when a playful child throws a pebble into it, no wet plop or the temporary displacement that creates…that creates…that creates…

…ripples on the surface.

 _Of course_.

It had been right in front of him all along.

When Maul readies himself for the fight, he gathers the ambient energies of the Force _into_ himself, his center, in order to anticipate his opponent’s strategy, amplify his strength, and power his attack. This is no surprise. No, this is what it means to be a Force user—has always meant?—and it’s no different than what any Jedi has been trained to do under the circumstances.

But Ben does not do the same now. Instead, he opens himself up and surrenders the ego, the self, allowing that which constitutes Ben Kenobi to begin to dissolve, to dissipate, to flow _away_ from his center—the stubborn will to exist and persist which all life naturally possesses—like a river into the lake, into the sea. All that Ben is touches lightly upon all else that exists, _and moves it_ , without any exertion of will or intention.

And then he can feel it…no. No, not “it.” He can feel _him_.

What he feels are not the distinctive, lingering _energies_ of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, but rather his distinctive, lingering _pattern_ in those energies which surround them—and that pattern is embedded, ever moving but unchanging, spreading out across the whole of the galaxy, in the very architecture of the Force itself.

Like the Force is a vast lake, and Qui-Gon is ripples on the surface of that lake.

Those ripples are moving through Maul, and they are moving through Ben, and in the space of less than three seconds, these two opponents re-enact that fated duel in the reactor on Naboo, and this time, it has a very different ending: When Maul aims a brutal blow to Ben’s forehead, a strike intended to momentarily daze him, to render him defenseless, Ben simply ducks and slices straight through the hilt of Maul’s double-bladed weapon…and he slices straight through Maul as well.

He catches Maul before he falls to the ground and holds him as he dies. He’d also held Qui-Gon in the same way as _he_ died. Ben had spoken the truth earlier; he bears no grudge. No, there is much compassion here. And there is love, even. Love is universal.

Especially now that, for the first time, Ben truly understands what Qui-Gon had been telling him all along.

***

The Lars moisture farm sprawls out along the flatlands outside Anchorhead, and the domed, aboveground entrance to the farmhouse proper is visible from a distance of several kilometers.

Ben arrives at second sunrise, and as Luke had promised, Owen is not present to complain (with not inconsiderable merit) about the trouble Ben is wont to bring with him wherever he goes. Beru, however, is present, and she is delighted to buy the scavenged vaporator condenser coil off of Ben for his asking price of one-hundred and fifty credits.

Then, Beru being Beru, she invites Ben down into their home. An intoxicating scent is rising from the kitchen—milk pudding, traditional on Tatooine to celebrate the annual bantha calving. This holiday is otherwise known as “the end of the dry season” because bantha milk is such an important dietary staple, and all but the wealthiest residents of Tatooine, those who can afford expensive, offworld imported milk powder, have been going without for many months.

Of course, longer-lasting dairy products such as hard cheese, yogurt, and a fizzy, fermented, lightly alcoholic drink called kumis are available year-round…but they’re just not the same as a plain glass of fresh milk.

Ben has been instructed to mind the stove, where a giant pot of thick, sky-blue sweet custard, spiced with fragrant pashenthrop, is simmering. While Ben stirs vigorously, Beru pours a generous portion of husked, polished wholegrain into the pot. The wholegrain cooks quickly once it makes contact with the hot custard, and then it is a rush to transfer the mixture into the ready and waiting rows of single-portion setting bowls.

The traditional recipe calls for the bowls to be topped with golden treacle and left to cool for several hours. But Luke, with the impeccable timing of an incorrigible, “starving” adolescent, materializes in the kitchen to claim a portion of pudding immediately. So, all three of them decide to dig right in, blowing on thick, gooey spoonfuls to try (and mostly fail) to hasten the cooling and laughing as they try (and mostly fail) not to burn their tongues.

The wholegrain is chewy, with a subtle tree-nut-like flavor, and the custard is creamy and sweet. Ben has dined with politicians, plutocrats, and planetary royalty, yet he is certain that no patron of any exclusive restaurant on Coruscant has ever eaten a more finely crafted, more tasty milk pudding.

Luke talks eagerly about racing the skyhopper through Beggar’s Canyon and his application for a place at an Imperial Academy to train to become a pilot. Ben knows that moisture farming is not Luke’s destiny; Owen and Beru will not be able to keep him confined to Tatooine forever.

On another day, Ben thinks, he will worry about the future. But for today, just for today, in this tiny, far-flung corner of the galaxy, there is peace and light and happiness and healing, and Ben allows himself to let go.

He truly lets go.

***

To teach something is to well and truly master it. Any Jedi who takes on an apprentice learns this all too quickly.

Conversely, it might just as easily be said that it takes discovering that one is not ready to teach something to realize quite how much one has failed to master.

Ben groans, stretches, and rubs the palms of his hands over his face. He is tired, and his back is stiff and sore. He has been writing in his journal nonstop all day, but he knows that his written account of his duel with Maul and the discovery he’d inadvertently made in the process falls much, much too far short of what he will need to communicate to Luke one day in order to educate him fully in the Ways of the Force.

“It’s getting late. Put pen and paper aside and come to bed, Obi-Wan.”

“Ah, not yet, Master,” Ben protests. “Let me finish this one passage…”

_**The secret, which my Master discovered and I impart unto you now, is not achieved through the retention of one’s energy, the maintenance of the separate, sanctified self. It is, rather, achieved by a dissipation of the self and the replication of one’s pattern across the whole of the energy field that is the Force…**_

No, it’s enough. He sighs and drops his pen. It will still be here tomorrow.

Ben performs his nightly ablutions in his home’s primitive refresher, removes all of his clothing, and sits down on the bed. His hands grip the edge of the mattress, fingers digging into the fabric of the bedclothes, and he is already aching with anticipation. Perhaps he shouldn’t be eager, but he can’t help himself. He needs this. He closes his eyes and waits.

As always, he can hear him approach: the heavy, booted footsteps, the rustle of the hem of the robe against the floor as it is shed and dropped. Big, warm hands take him by the shoulders, and thin, warm lips press a kiss to his forehead. Ben does not try to reach out and touch in return, or to reciprocate the kiss, not even when those lips meet his own, the facial hair ticklish, tantalizing, the long mane of hair in its half-tail brushing feather light against the sides of Ben’s face as he starts to fall backwards onto the expanse of the bed.

Qui-Gon follows him down, settling between his parted legs, kissing and sucking and licking at his throat, his shoulder, his collarbone, the sensitive points of both nipples, the slight swell of his belly and the divot of his navel. Fingers trace the length of his hardness, caressing and cupping the sac already pulled in high and tight. And then he is grasped, boldly, erection pulled away from its tangled nest of pubic hair and guided into the wet, welcome cavern of a mouth.

It is intimate, intimate and glorious, as always, to feel the tongue stretching the foreskin and licking at the slick glans underneath, then retracting it completely and pressing into the exposed frenulum until Ben’s body is tense, nerves singing with the sheer, uncomplicated pleasure of it.

But there is more, yes, more, of course there is, when Qui-Gon swallows him whole. The tight, hot, wet cavern of the throat, the rasp of the lips, the suction from the hollowing of cheeks. Stars go nova behind Ben’s eyelids as the mouth on him bobs up and down, up and down, up and down. He is transported. This is heaven. Ah, so close, so close—! No, wait, too close—! Ben doesn’t want it to end like this, no no no, not this quickly—

For the first time in many, many years, he forgets himself. Or, _does_ he forget himself? Maybe a part of him already knows, has always known.

But regardless, when he moves to push Qui-Gon’s head off of his swollen, throbbing erection, his hands do _not_ pass through the empty air, like Qui-Gon isn’t real, isn’t really there. Instead, they touch a warm, solid head, and his fingers comb and twist through the locks of that straight, brown-and-silver hair.

_He’s real. He actually feels real._

“Master, I… Master—!!” Ben sobs.

“True understanding at last, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon says. And kisses him.

He feels real, and Ben thinks he can taste himself in Qui-Gon’s mouth as their tongues dance and joust. Their bodies twine, and Ben wraps all four limbs around the body covering him, thrusting his hips into the weight, delighting in the simple solid resistance of skin against skin.

Ben is holding their erections together in his fist when he comes, spilling abundant pulses of semen over them both and making Qui-Gon shudder from the effort of not immediately tumbling into orgasm along with him. Not yet, no, not yet, Ben thinks. They haven’t yet—

Oh, he feels so real! Wonderfully real. He is still slick and wet, even, from Ben’s ejaculation when he positions himself. The pressure and the stretch and the deep, endless slide of that long, thick organ as it rearranges his insides makes Ben groan. He contracts and relaxes his muscles around the shaft, teasing, encouraging, and he knows that Qui-Gon feels it because he responds with a groan and begins to thrust.

Sweet, slow thrusts, then hard, fast ones. Then sweet and slow again. Qui-Gon was the sort of man in life who would make intercourse last forever. And sure enough, it seems to last forever, and he makes Ben wail and weep and writhe in the throes of erotic torment, his hips rising to meet each powerful thrust, fast or slow, no matter, their flesh meeting with sharp slapping sounds each time, perfect unison, the scent of their sex rising in the cool, night air all around them.

It feels real.

Completely, wholly real.

 _Real_.

Qui-Gon’s hands slip beneath Ben’s buttocks, blunt crescents of his neatly-trimmed nails digging into the flesh, marking him, and pulls him in tighter. He’s pounding Ben now, well and truly pounding him, plowing permanent furrows in the shape of himself inside of Ben, and then, at the apex of his stroke, in all the way to the hilt, he pauses, teetering on the precipice.

“Come, Obi-Wan. Come for me. Come with me. Together,” Qui-Gon says.

“M-Master!” Ben whimpers.

And he does. They do, kissing the whole time.

In that moment, Ben knows that they will never be parted, no matter what should happen to him in the future. While the desert winds smooth and reshape the Dune Sea beyond the adobe walls of Ben’s humble abode, he and Qui-Gon hold each other close.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> (1) I have taken inspiration from [this story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13607478) for particulars related to the mechanics of sex with a Force Ghost.
> 
> (2) Some of the ideas for Tatooine-related worldbuilding were first developed for [this story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10237940).
> 
> (3) Posted to the exchange on May 26, 2018.


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